What is the point? you want laws and judgments? we got them but its make or break time for Turkish ties to civilization.

OK but I do not know what that last bit in bold even means ? Turkey is at some crucial juncture in time where it either abandons it's wicked ways and thus maintains ties to civilisation, or does not and thus all ties to civilisation are lost ? Not even sure what a 'tie to civilisation' means ?

What is the point? you want laws and judgments? we got them but its make or break time for Turkish ties to civilization.

OK but I do not know what that last bit in bold even means ? Turkey is at some crucial juncture in time where it either abandons it's wicked ways and thus maintains ties to civilisation, or does not and thus all ties to civilisation are lost ? Not even sure what a 'tie to civilisation' means ?

yes, something like that. I am guessing here because I did not start this thread.

Civilization, it varies between advanced cultures and societies to primitive cultures and societies. Which type of civilization does Turkey want to have ties to?

If there were a court that Turkey could be prosecuted at on the basis of this breach, what do you think the basis of Turkey's defence would be ? Is there a court Turkey could be prosecuted at by an asylum seeker who thought Turkey was violating their rights as such ? One where Turkey could put its case and the refugee puts there and where a legal judgement is made ?

I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Is there a court that could demand from EU to accept an UNLIMITED number of people coming from Turkey? Turkey is not a war zone.

I have never said the refugees have such a right. They do have a right to claim asylum and to not be returned to somewhere where their rights are not respected.

Are you saying that Turkey doesn't respect the rights of the refugees? If you are saying that, then wouldn't Turkey deserve to be penalized by the EU for (a) helping create the crisis with the excuse that Assad is bad for its people (b) mistreating the Syrian refugees?

The EU has a more pressing 'need' however, which is to stop the break up of Schengen and the disintegration of the EU. Right now for the EU this is less about, as I see it. where the refugees end up going and more about a need to stop the uncontrolled flow of them before it cause fractures within the EU that cause massive damage to the whole EU project. This is exactly what I think they are trying to do. I think if they really believed they could do this or the only way to do it, would be to MAKE Turkey stop the flow physically under threat of the harshest sticks they could wield, then they would be doing that. I suspect they have taken a rational view that trying to do this would in fact make the position of the EU worse and not better.

I disagree. It could be worst for a few EU capitalists who have interests in Turkey... but even this is not the main reason because EU has sanctioned Russia with which there are also great financial interests. And I believe Turkey would fall in line when cornered so no financial interests would be harmed anyway. The main reason for the stance of EU is that they don't want to go against the will of the Americans who are partners with the Turks in creating the crisis in Syria. But for most EU countries and the great majority of EU's population adopting a strict stance on Turkey would be a better and far more effective way of dealing with this issue. The EU leadership should grow some balls. What will cause the disintegration of the EU is the inability to become a strong global force... the EU should aspire to be a superpower... not just a set of countries under American control... otherwise it has very little reason to exist and it might as well disintegrate back to a "European Economic Community".

Sotos wrote:Is there a court that could demand from EU to accept an UNLIMITED number of people coming from Turkey? Turkey is not a war zone.

I am saying that right of a state to return a refugee to a 'prior' country only exists if that prior country will respect the rights of that refugee, the right to claim asylum and all the other human rights they have whilst claiming and asylum and after if they are granted asylum in that prior country. For a state to loose it's legal right to return a refugee to Turkey as a 'prior' country, it does not need for their to be a war in Turkey. It only needs for it to be the case that either Turkey will not hear that refugees case for seeking asylum in Turkey in a fair manner or at all, or whilst it hears it, or after it has heard it and asylum is granted, the general human rights of that refugee will not be properly respected. This is exactly what both the ECJ and the ECHR ruled in relation to returns by states of refugees to Greece back in 2011. There was no war in Greece, yet these courts ruled that it was illegal for other EU states to return refugees to Greece as a 'prior' country that refugee could have claimed asylum in, because the systems in Greece at that time would not have allowed that refugee to claim asylum in Greece in a manner that was compatible with their human rights.

Sotos wrote: Are you saying that Turkey doesn't respect the rights of the refugees?

If you are asking me do I think both the ability of a refugee to validly seek asylum in Turkey and that their other human rights would be fully respected in Turkey whilst they seek such and after should they gain such a status of refugee, be fully respected, then my answer would be personally I think at best such a judgement is 'borderline' and over all probably not. However the point is the EU HAS to believe or make out it believes that Turkey will respect the rights of such refugees, otherwise it becomes illegal for any EU nation to return any refugee that arrives in that country to Turkey under existing EU law.

Sotos wrote:If you are saying that, then wouldn't Turkey deserve to be penalized by the EU for (a) helping create the crisis with the excuse that Assad is bad for its people (b) mistreating the Syrian refugees?

I do not think there is any gain, for the EU or Turkey, in penalising Turkey for failing to a place where refugees can claim asylum and have their human rights respected whilst they do and after they have gained asylum there. In the same way the EU did not seek to penalize Greece when courts found it failing in this regard. What the EU did and is doing when Greece was found to be failing in this regard was work with Greece to correct the situation. I think it did rather than penalize Greece because such was in the best interest of both the EU and Greece. Of course Greece was within the EU and Turkey is not but I think the same principals and objectives as to how the EU should react and why are essentially the same in each case. As for should the EU penalise Turkey for for helping to create the crisis, well I am not sure to be honest. I do however think if it were to seek to penalise Turkey for this, then there are others that they should also seek to penalise on the same basis.

The EU has a more pressing 'need' however, which is to stop the break up of Schengen and the disintegration of the EU. Right now for the EU this is less about, as I see it. where the refugees end up going and more about a need to stop the uncontrolled flow of them before it cause fractures within the EU that cause massive damage to the whole EU project. This is exactly what I think they are trying to do. I think if they really believed they could do this or the only way to do it, would be to MAKE Turkey stop the flow physically under threat of the harshest sticks they could wield, then they would be doing that. I suspect they have taken a rational view that trying to do this would in fact make the position of the EU worse and not better.

Sotos wrote: I disagree. It could be worst for a few EU capitalists who have interests in Turkey....

The 'danger' for the EU in choosing to 'penalise' Turkey is imo not to do with the economics between the EU, or elements within the EU and Turkey. The danger is that doing so actually makes the current migration crisis worse for the EU than it already is, increasing the pressures created by it, reducing practical means of dealing with it, increasing tensions within the EU and between EU states, threatening to undermine and role back both the ideal and the trend of increasing integration and co operation within the EU and empowering hard line nationalist movements within EU member states. That the the potential consequence of taking a 'hard line big balls' approach to Turkey over the migration crisis could result in significant damage being done to the core of the EU itself and the values and ideals it is built upon. This is just my view. It is however a view that offers an explanation as to why the EU is behaving the way they are in regards to Turkey that is different from them being stupid, or cowards or lacking in balls of sufficient dimension and such like.

I think, the first thing the EU needs to do, is to treat those migrants coming to Greece from Turkey as "economic migrants" and not as "refugees" or even as "asylum" seekers. The EU should treat these people as "Illegal Aliens" and deport them to their country of origin if Turkey does not take them back, which for most, will be Syria and Iraq, no doubt. The fact that Turkey had invited the Syrians to come to Turkey in the first place, it should ALL be Turkey's responsibility to look after them as refugees from a war torn Syria. The fact that these people are classified as refugees by Turkey because they are arriving from a war torn Syria, there's no reason why their status shouldn't change to "economic migrants" when they arrive illegally to Greece, because these people are no longer escaping a war, but instead they are escaping poor conditions in Turkey, therefore, this makes them all to become "economic migrants".

The fact that Germany took in a million of these people, lets not kid ourselves here, that Germany wasn't being kindhearted by taking in a million or so "refugees". No, they took them in, because Germany needed large numbers of fresh and young labour force, for them to work in their factories, but now they have enough and do not want anymore, but now, every Tom, Dick and Harry around the world from less fortunate countries will want to come to the EU as "refugees" or Asylum seekers in an non orderly fashion. Sorry, but this is totally unacceptable.

In the immediate term, it will be wise for the EU to shut down the Schengen completely and install border controls to stop Illegal Aliens from roaming the EU from one country to the other freely. More and more countries, within and outside of the EU countries are imposing tighter border controls or even closing them down to the so called "refugees". This will also make any Visa-free travel to the Turks unusable in case the present provisional agreements become accepted next week that will grant Turkey a visa-free travel in Schengen areas. So, if I have to stop at the border or airport to show my passport to be allowed to enter another EU member state, then so be it. It's a small price to pay than the bigger price, which is to allow Turkey to blackmailing the EU.

As for the "one refugee sent back to Turkey from Greece, one refugees goes to the EU from Turkey" scam, once the "refugees" are no longer able to go to Greece due to better controlling of the Greek waters by NATO and others, there won't be anyone returned back to Turkey, which in theory means no refugees needs to be sent to the EU, and if this is what the EU is hoping for and putting their trust in Turkey, then I got news for them. What is to stop Turkey from making ALL the refugees in Turkey, all 2.5-3 million of them as Turkish citizens and then give them a passport each to enter the EU visa free to anywhere they want to go, and once there in the EU, to ask for an asylum of some kind. In the meantime, the EU would have paid Turkey about 6 billion Euros for absolutely for nothing. As I have said before, the EU should really tell Turkey to take a hike.

Kikapu wrote:I think, the first thing the EU needs to do, is to treat those migrants coming to Greece from Turkey as "economic migrants" and not as "refugees" or even as "asylum" seekers. The EU should treat these people as "Illegal Aliens" and deport them to their country of origin if Turkey does not take them back, which for most, will be Syria and Iraq, no doubt. The fact that Turkey had invited the Syrians to come to Turkey in the first place, it should ALL be Turkey's responsibility to look after them as refugees from a war torn Syria. The fact that these people are classified as refugees by Turkey because they are arriving from a war torn Syria, there's no reason why their status shouldn't change to "economic migrants" when they arrive illegally to Greece, because these people are no longer escaping a war, but instead they are escaping poor conditions in Turkey, therefore, this makes them all to become "economic migrants".

The fact that Germany took in a million of these people, lets not kid ourselves here, that Germany wasn't being kindhearted by taking in a million or so "refugees". No, they took them in, because Germany needed large numbers of fresh and young labour force, for them to work in their factories, but now they have enough and do not want anymore, but now, every Tom, Dick and Harry around the world from less fortunate countries will want to come to the EU as "refugees" or Asylum seekers in an non orderly fashion. Sorry, but this is totally unacceptable.

In the immediate term, it will be wise for the EU to shut down the Schengen completely and install border controls to stop Illegal Aliens from roaming the EU from one country to the other freely. More and more countries, within and outside of the EU countries are imposing tighter border controls or even closing them down to the so called "refugees". This will also make any Visa-free travel to the Turks unusable in case the present provisional agreements become accepted next week that will grant Turkey a visa-free travel in Schengen areas. So, if I have to stop at the border or airport to show my passport to be allowed to enter another EU member state, then so be it. It's a small price to pay than the bigger price, which is to allow Turkey to blackmailing the EU.

As for the "one refugee sent back to Turkey from Greece, one refugees goes to the EU from Turkey" scam, once the "refugees" are no longer able to go to Greece due to better controlling of the Greek waters by NATO and others, there won't be anyone returned back to Turkey, which in theory means no refugees needs to be sent to the EU, and if this is what the EU is hoping for and putting their trust in Turkey, then I got news for them. What is to stop Turkey from making ALL the refugees in Turkey, all 2.5-3 million of them as Turkish citizens and then give them a passport each to enter the EU visa free to anywhere they want to go, and once there in the EU, to ask for an asylum of some kind. In the meantime, the EU would have paid Turkey about 6 billion Euros for absolutely for nothing. As I have said before, the EU should really tell Turkey to take a hike.

Erolz, it should make all the difference that Greece is in EU and Turkey is not. What is the point of EU if not serving the interests of its member states? It should also make a difference that Turkey shares the responsibility for creating the refugee problem, while countries like Greece had nothing to do with it. It has been proven that being soft with Turkey does NOT work. Look how Russia reacted after the Turks shot down their plane... they placed sanctions on Turkey and they placed S400 missiles in Syria, eagerly waiting for the moment that a Turkish jet will cross for a few milliseconds into Syrian airspace so they can shoot it down and get even. That is the right way to treat Erdogan.